Balancing on a Planet

The Future of Food and Agriculture

David A. Cleveland

Publication Year: 2014

This book is an interdisciplinary primer on critical thinking and effective action for the future of our global agrifood system, based on an understanding of the system’s historical roots. A key component of the book is a thorough analysis of the assumptions underlying different perspectives on problems related to food and agriculture around the world and a discussion of alternative solutions. David Cleveland argues, for example, that combining selected aspects of small-scale traditional agriculture with modern scientific agriculture can help balance our biological need for food with its environmental impact—and continue to fulfill cultural, social, and psychological needs related to food.

Balancing on a Planet is based on Cleveland’s research and engaging teaching about food and agriculture for more than three decades. It is a tool to help students, faculty, researchers, and interested readers understand debates about the current crisis and alternatives for the future.

Title page, Copyright, Dedication

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Preface: A Personal History

My grandparents planted the hill behind their farmhouse in upstate New York, all the way
to where the woods of maple, oak, and beech began, with dozens of apple varieties. Every fall
the apples harvested from that orchard filled many barrels, and they were transformed into...

Acknowledgments

I am especially indebted to Daniela Soleri, who not only commented on the entire manuscript,
parts of it many times, but who has also provided intellectual stimulation and emotional
support as a collaborator on research since the early 1980s. Particularly inspiring has...

Introduction

The current world food crisis that began in 2007–2008 is in many ways similar to the hundreds
or thousands of local and regional crises that have transpired since the beginning of
agriculture. As we have seen, there are sharply contrasting perspectives on the causes and...

Part One: Agrifood Systems History and Future

1. Eating Stardust: Population, Food, and Agriculture on Planet Earth

Imagine that you are zooming outward from the chair you are sitting on while reading this
book.1 You see the place where you were sitting recede into its continent, and then the curvature
of our planet Earth appears, growing smaller and smaller, joined by the other planets...

2. Agricultural Revolutions

Imagine waking in the morning, opening your eyes to see a sky beginning to lighten to a
clear blue, the light of the rising sun filtered through the leaves of acacia trees towering over
you, the smell of soil and plants and the remains of last night’s fire in your nose...

3. Thinking Critically about Sustainable Agrifood Systems

What is your assessment of the current state of our agrifood system? What is it based on?
There are lots of scientific reports on the subject, but their results often conflict, and interpretations
of these results can be even more at odds with one another...

4. Sustainable Agrifood Systems: Three Emphases

The heads of state of the world’s leading industrial nations, members of the G8 (Group of
Eight), met in Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan, on July 6, 2008.1 They ate luxurious multicourse
meals and chatted over drinks; in addition to an extensive selection of wines...

Part Two: Moving toward Sustainable Agrifood Systems: A Balancing Act

5. Managing Evolution: Plant Breeding and Biotechnology

It is an ocean of maize extending in all directions. The maize leaves curl in the dry afternoon
heat. The rains are late, the rains are scarce . . . again. The climate is changing. Teresa
looks out at her field and plans her next move. “Where can I get maize that will...

6. Managing Agricultural Ecosystems: The Critical Role of Diversity

In rural Durango, in north-central Mexico, a colleague and I were being shown gardens in
a rural area near the capital city, escorted by a small group of urban women, wives of agronomists
working for the government (Cleveland 1986a). These gardens were being...

7. Managing People: The Common Property Option

The Zorse chief’s wife was renowned as the best brewer of sorghum beer in the village. So
after a long, hot day of biking between house compounds in the middle of the dry season,
my research assistants and I headed to the chief’s house for a calabash of her...

8. The Big Solutions: Climate Change, Resource Cycles, and Diet

Imagine the world twenty to thirty years in the future. How old will you be? How old will
your children be? Will it be a world where humans have cooperated to reverse global warming?
Will we have decided to pursue prosperity decoupled from increasing...

9. The Big Solutions: Localizing Agrifood Systems

You are in the produce section of your grocery store, you want to buy carrots, and you have a
choice. There are two bins of carrots, the carrots in each bin look the same and are the same
price, but there are different signs in front of each bin. One sign reads...

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